


this is the way i'll love you

by ongreenergrasses



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: An exploration of Nicky's love for Joe, Bittersweet, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Historical References, M/M, Many Declarations of Love in Many Ways, Multiple Time Periods, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:06:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29566545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ongreenergrasses/pseuds/ongreenergrasses
Summary: After 900 years, Nicky likes to think there's nothing new under the sun. He knows how to love Joe in every way he can think of, entirely, constantly, completely. As long as he knows he loves Joe and Joe loves him, the rest will fall into place....five love languages, reimagined
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	this is the way i'll love you

**Author's Note:**

> i saw [ this post](https://dogmotifs.tumblr.com/post/616445739910971392/dogmotifs-before-this-format-is-completely-dead) and it moved into my head rent free. it's the source of the love languages here. enjoy!

_love to you is sitting next to_ your person _, so you take out a mandarin and as you peel it you give them every other piece. no one says a thing, but you both know what’s bubbling beneath it all. you wanna protect your love, and you know that somewhere deep within you, like it’s branded on your bones. you wanna be a safe house in the middle of a war. you wanna be a lit up home at the end of day, signaling to come this way. you devote yourself to everything you care for, you don’t know how else to want. you give your hand as an offering, you give yourself as penance. well it's all very: i love you. i want us both to eat well._

* * *

**granada, 1503**

“We need to go,” Yusuf said, for somewhere between the third and the fifth time. Nicolò vaguely waved a hand at him to try and get him to be quiet but he also didn’t have high hopes in that regard. “Nico. We have to go.”

“Shh, shh, my love, you’ve got to lower your voice.” Nicolò wrapped an arm around Yusuf’s waist and pulled him closer. Nicolò was not thinking about anything, very much not thinking about anything; instead, he was just devoting his energy and his focus into keeping Yusuf upright and quiet and getting themselves back to their house so they could grab their things and get out of this godforsaken city.

“You can’t say things like that, Nicolò, if they catch us…”

Nicolò could feel Yusuf shaking next to him, not violently, not overwhelmingly, just constant, unending tremors. He was shaking so hard that it was difficult for Nicolò to keep holding him. Nicolò was still not thinking about it, not thinking about it.

“ _Nico_ ,” Yusuf said again, and his voice was so thready with fear that Nicolò spun around and pushed them both up against the back wall of one of the houses in the alleyway, covering Yusuf’s body with his own, hoping that the combination of his physical weight and the sound of his words would calm Yusuf down and ground him enough that they could go another two streets away and get into their house and then leave.

“Hey,” he said. “Hey, look, look at me, this is the plan.” Yusuf was absolutely not going to be able to conceptualize anything regarding a plan right now, that much was certain. Nicolò was going to tell him anyway for transparency’s sake. “Here’s the plan,” Nicolò said again, giving up on eye contact and instead winding an arm around Yusuf’s shoulders and tugging him into the curve of his body, pushing Yusuf’s face into his neck, smearing the blood from the last time Yusuf had died all over both of them. “We’re going to go back to the house. We’re going to get our things, and then we’re going to leave and never come back to this place.” Yusuf took a great, shuddering breath. Nicolò kissed the top of his head. “But we need to be quiet.”

“Fine,” Yusuf said eventually, and Nicolò moved them away from the wall and back down the alleyway, keeping a too tight grip on Yusuf’s waist the whole way. (Yusuf’s nails were biting into his arm. Nicolò was sure there would be blood left behind even though the cuts healed too quickly to see.)

They were accustomed to packing their things quickly but they were both so strung out that they weren’t moving as fast as Nicolò would’ve liked. Yusuf’s eyes weren’t focusing, just skittering over their possessions, the food from however long ago still on the table, the broken dishes, the broken chair, the broken window.

They didn’t bother to tidy up. If people came looking for them, which they soon would, a clean house would be a clue that led straight to them. Most of the things they had in their home, beautiful things, ten years’ worth of things that they’d collected, weren’t worth carrying. Other people would come to strip the house of valuables in the morning. That was the way things went these days – as each family was dragged off, people descended on their house the next day like vultures. Their absence wouldn’t necessarily be noticed by the common people, the two of them just two more in a long list of casualties.

Nicolò hadn’t seen the entirety, or even the majority, of what had happened to Yusuf. It had taken him a week to find Yusuf, simply because he had wanted to ensure that there would be no mistakes. What he had seen when he’d finally gotten Yusuf and two other men free was enough for him to know that whatever had happened would be with Yusuf for a long, long time.

Things had been bad for the past ten years. Yusuf had wanted to stay to help, and Nicolò had had (not for the first time in their long lives) a considerable deal of extra sway under the Crown of Castile at this precise moment in time based on his race and his religion. So they had stayed and helped where they could, and it had caught up with them eventually.

Nicolò had slipped too far into thought at this point and hadn’t noticed Yusuf making ten separate small bundles of the rest of their perishable food. (They had saved dried food and preserves as best they could – food had slowly become more and more difficult to come by.)

“Do not challenge me, Nicolò,” Yusuf said when he sensed Nicolò watching, and he sounded almost dangerous.

“You know we cannot expose ourselves. To leave those will let them know we have been here.”

“They are our friends,” Yusuf said, “and we will be long gone by the time they see these. We cannot carry all of this food anyway.” _This is not up for discussion_ , he did not need to say.

They were packed and gone within the hour. They snuck back out of the Muslim quarter, and Yusuf carefully placed one of the bundles of food on each doorstep lining the path on the way. They had known all of the people on their street by name, watched their children grow up. Nicolò did not want to think about the fate of those children.

They made it out of the city and covered a good distance by the time they stopped to rest and for Yusuf to pray fajr. They had to travel under cover of darkness, as it was too dangerous to be on the road during the day and risk recognition or exposure.

Nicolò had somehow found himself in possession of Yusuf’s prayer rug (he had been the one to pack everything they’d kept tucked up underneath the bedframe, and the prayer rug had been hidden there like it was dangerous, like it was something shameful) and he handed it over to Yusuf before going to set up camp somewhere in the copse of trees that paralleled their path.

The fields they had traveled through had been deserted throughout the night, but Nicolò still kept one eye on him as he prayed. It would do no good if they were seen or set upon now after they had finally been able to leave that godforsaken place. It was dangerous to even pray, yes, but Yusuf knew that more intimately than Nicolò did, and Nicolò was certainly not going to tell his beloved that he could not pray, not now, and not ever. Not after everything.

Nicolò had managed to organize what he could, start a fire, get some water boiling and put together some sort of food by the time Yusuf came to join him. He was shaking again, enough that Nicolò could see it even from across the fire. It hurt Nicolò to look at him directly.

He didn’t have words in any language for the emotions pouring off of Yusuf. He didn’t know if there were words to describe it. But this wasn’t about Nicolò, and he knew one of his worst traits was that sometimes he got too lost in his own head to be any good to anyone else, and right now, only one of them could fall apart at any given time until they reached somewhere safe.

Yusuf sat down hard next to him. “Where should we go?” he said finally.

“Do you want to go home?”

Home was an interesting concept now. For a time they had thought of Córdoba as a sort of home, but that was closed to them now as well. They had been to Mahdia many times, and Yusuf, who was always bright, and always joyous, and always radiant, became something else in his hometown. They had never gone to Genova, for Nicolò had no interest in returning there.

“I don’t want to bring this home,” Yusuf said. “Let’s – somewhere new, yes?”

Nicolò hummed in assent. He had been pushing food over to Yusuf and as he ate, continually replacing the food. He was now working on peeling an orange, which had somewhat stopped the constant flow, and when Yusuf turned to look and see what was holding him up he sighed.

“Those do not travel well, Nico, they take up too much space.”

“We will eat the ones I’ve brought this morning, then,” Nicolò said, and passed him an orange slice.

“Thank you.”

“For?”

“Everything.”

Nicolò hummed and gave him another orange slice. “You’re welcome. But you know I will always come for you, yes? There is no need to thank me for that.”

“I know,” said Yusuf, “but just as I know that you’ll always come for me and you still needed to say it, so I will always thank you for the things you do for me, so that you never forget how grateful I am for you and the things you do.”

Nicolò thought of many things he could say in that instant. He also thought he might cry.

He passed Yusuf another orange slice instead. “Eat, you need to get your strength back.”

**Author's Note:**

> is it the end of the term, so i am completely swamped with coursework? yes. am i going to start running two wips at the same time? also yes. it'll be fun! 
> 
> if you find any errors, no matter what size, and decide to use some of your precious emotional time and energy to correct me, i will be a) honored and humbled that you have chosen to do so and b) make the appropriate revisions as quickly as possible.


End file.
